An extremely dark comedy. When taken in the context of the Irish civil war, it’s a micro look a war that pitted friend vs friend. Yeah, it was odd, but background helps.
I watched The Contractor. Chris Pine as a former special ops military guy who gets involved with mercenaries. Pretty predictable.
Of Human Bondage (1934. Bette Davis/Leslie Howard)
This was Bette Davis’s breakout role (which she fought for). She did a solid job playing the despicable, amoral Mildred in this story of unrequited love and betrayal, though I’m glad she refrained from false accents after this film—her cockney accent didn’t convince me. Howard played the love-lorn wimp well enough, but Bette steals the show when she’s on screen.
A good movie (supposedly the best of the 3 versions made), but I wish Davis played it later in life when her acting chops greatly improved and she became one of my all-time favorite actresses.
I think this has fun possibilities: Just when you think it’s safe to slumber, the Pooh hits the fan!
The Reason I Jump, a documentary on Netflix that strives to communicate what it’s like to live with autism. I thought it was well done. It’s based on a book written by a fifteen year old nonverbal autistic boy explaining what it’s like to live as an autist. It showed that a lack of communicative speech doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of understanding. And of course the emotional landscape is as varied and diverse as a neurotypical human’s. The longing for self-expression was particularly moving. I think it does a pretty good job breaking down a lot of the myths and misunderstandings about autism simply by trying to capture the experience. It uses an unusual perspective (camera wise) to show how much sensory details matter. As the parent of a child who is pending diagnosis, I found it illuminating, however my husband found it emotionally difficult.
Bad Boys. Other than a few chuckles, it was pretty boring. Didn’t stop them from making a sequel, I guess.
There are two sequels and a new about to enter production. I believe the third one was called “Bad Boys For Life” and now Will Smith admits they should not have used that title since it would have been a better title…for the fourth one.
There’s an audience for most everything, I guess.
I believe this new one they are making is Will Smith’s big attempt to win people back over.
I have been awaiting Ted 3 for a while.
Infinity Pool
Brandon Cronenberg directed this movie and much like Possessor, his previous movie, it is quite strange. Unfortunately, much like Possessor, it isn’t much more than…very strange. Very strange. Visually striking, but not an incredible movie.
I liked Possessor and Infinity Pool much more than his father’s Crimes of the Future, but I predict Brandon Cronenberg is still a movie or two away from making something amazing. It’s certainly an interesting movie and I do recommend it, but it does not reach the elusive top tier of great movie making.
I think Brandon Cronenberg strives to be someone like Panos Cosmatos, but both Beyond the Black Rainbow and Mandy are much better movies than anything Brandon Cronenberg has yet to make.
Bringing Up Baby (1938) Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, directed by Howard Hawks.
I’ve always heard much about the “screwball comedy” genre of the 1930’s but had never seen this, the prototype. Cary plays an absent-minded professor, engaged to a frigid shrew. Hepburn is the ditzy heiress who crosses paths with him. He’s trying to get a $1M donation to his museum from her aunt. Hilarity ensues. (If this sounds vaguely familiar, Peter Bogdanovic’s “What’s Up Doc” (1972) is more than an homage, it’s basically a remake.)
There’s also a case of mistaken identity between two leopards, one of whom is the titular “Baby”.
Much of the zaniness ensues because Hepburn talks very fast and doesn’t listen to what Cary is trying to say. I wanted him to grab her lapels and say 'WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP FOR A MINUTE??".
But once past that, it’s actually quite funny. Two memorable scenes: Cary is wearing a floofy women’s peignoir, which he says is “because I’ve gone gay all of a sudden!!”.
And Hepburn is seen dragging a recalcitrant leopard by a leash. As far as I can tell, they achieved this affect by … actually having Katherine Hepburn drag a live leopard by a leash.
It’s on HBO Max
Pretty sure that making a violent movie is not the way to atone for violence.
Effects were used at times, though perhaps not by Hepburn…
Hepburn wore heavy perfume to keep Nissa calm and was unafraid of the leopard, but Grant was terrified; most scenes of the two interacting are done in close-up with a stand-in. Hepburn played upon his fear by throwing a toy leopard through the roof of Grant’s dressing room during production. There were several news reports about Hawks’ difficulty filming the live leopard, and the potential danger to highly valuable actors, so some scenes required rear screen projection while several others were shot using traveling mattes. In a scene where Grant has Baby on a leash, it is quite obvious that the leash was hand painted on film because it proved impossible to make the two parts of the leash join in the traveling matte.
I saw that for the first time fairly recently and thought it was hilarious.
Marlowe.
Yeah, it’s as bad as the reviews say. My second worst film of the year so far. Liam Neeson plays Philip Marlowe in what feels like it should be a parody of hard boiled film noir except it’s played absolutely deadpan straight. The dialogue is just so over the top pulpy that you can’t help but laugh, but it’s not trying to be funny… Neeson plays him as if he stepped right off the set of “Taken.” Plot lines are convoluted but don’t make any sense, resolutions occur that make you go, “Wait? What? Why did that happen?” Just really poor all around.
More like making a mass appeal sequel to a movie that is one of your big hits.
…and zero risk of getting an Oscar nomination.
He was worried he would get one?
His Oscar nom bid was last year’s Emancipation, which sank rather quickly (and not because of low box office results, it was never expected to be a big moneymaker)
I’ve never had a movie actually give me a headache until today:
The Lorax
Except for Danny DeVito’s voice work, the entire film was reprehensible.